Seven Senses
by swastini
Summary: Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. - Oscar Wilde. Kaku discovers the link. Implied KakuxLucci, rated T for *ahem* mature implications


**Seven Senses**

Sixth – Here, There, Everywhere

It's eerie, Lucci's presence.

(Jyabura thinks it's the feline blood in him, but Kaku knows differently.)

It's nothing that can be touched, smelt, seen – only felt. Kaku compares it to the sensation of being crushed by a two-ton rock; slow, agonizing, and after a certain point, numbing. There's pressure and pain and pleasure – so utterly unique, so utterly Lucci.

(It's different for everyone, of course; Kalifa's aura washes over people like frothy waves, while Jyabura's tears through flesh like sharpened claws. His own, on the other hand, is a mystery to him.)

Yet, Kaku can't complain. Lucci's presence – no, Lucci himself – is something he's never been able to complain about. It's always been _there_, after all, like a wild cat stalking its prey, waiting to pounce.

Kaku's never more confused when he's with Rob Lucci.

'I'm leaving. Don't bother coming to look for me. Because I won't be waiting. So don't wait too. Lucci.'

(Kaku's never more alone when he's without him, too.)

Fifth – Flesh Memory

"_Come back!"_

The white spray on his face.

"_Lucci!"_

The erratic pound of rain on his back.

"_L-Lucci! Come – oh god, you stupid – !"_

The tears stinging bitterly, unwillingly, in his eyes.

"_You're not invincible! You can't! You can't do this!"_

The soreness of his throat from screaming, his thighs from running, in between them from –

"_LUCCI!"_

The curved, nail-shaped cuts in his palm. The blood running down his wrist and the desperate, gasping wheeze of his breath. The pain in his chest, thudding like dying drum, beating to the rhythm of the trashing waves, as Lucci's boat sails further into the horizon. The sting of his knees as he falls onto them; a low, unheard moan to no one.

"_Why?"_

Kaku doesn't think he'll ever forget those things, nor that sorry and sad morning.

He won't forget Lucci either.

Fourth – Lemme' Tell Ya What This Tastes Like

Jyabura admits it – he's worried.

Kaku hasn't slept since the cat-bastard left; hasn't eaten, showered, or smiled either. He doesn't care much about the last one, but the first three things worry him. The crying's starting to freak him out too.

"You must consume some food, Kaku," Kalifa says, leaning outside the door. She's carrying a bowl of steaming noodles, and her expression is strict, if not just the slightest bit anxious.

They've all been anxious, really.

Surprisingly, the door creaks open, just enough so Kalifa and him can slip in. Kaku is sitting on the bed, eyes closed in exhaustion. Jyabura winces at the sight of the man. It isn't a pretty one.

Kaku's hair is wet, like when they found him the docks weeks ago, and is plastered to his too thin, too pained face. His bones – ribs especially – are jutting out in awkward angles; his sallow, pale skin littered with purplish-blue bruises and shallow cuts. Jyabura wonders if they're self-inflicted, and nearly gags at the thought.

"Kalifa. Jyabura." His voice is in bad shape as well – hoarse and croaky from lack of use. The absence of emotion in his words scares Jyabura more than any enemy they've ever faced.

"Eat your goddamn food, boy." Jyabura growls. He hasn't called Kaku a boy in years, but it seems oddly appropriate now.

Kaku nods without speaking. This scares him too.

Kalifa places the bowl in Kaku's hands, and they flinch instinctively from the heat. Jyabura watches morbidly as he picks up the chopsticks laid across the bowl and begins to eat.

"Kaku, he's gone. You're going to have to accept that." Kalifa whispers, her voice soft and unsure. "Lucci won't come back."

Kaku nods again. "Too salty." He says, pointing shakily at the bowl.

Jyabura doesn't know how to tell him it's the tears falling down his face that he's tasting.

Three – Animal Noises

Two years pass fleetingly, and Kaku heals.

He's the first one to get a job, and the others follow in suit, gladly embracing the return of normalcy. The zoo is an interesting place – filled with animals to study, people to observe. Sometimes he interacts with them, but mostly there's a lot of standing to the side and smiling. In a way, it reminds him of Water 7.

To Jyabura and Fukurou's eternal amusement, he is assigned to the giraffe exhibit on day one.

"And…" He manages to shout over peals of raucous laughter, "The leopard cages."

Silence.

Kaku doesn't say anything either, and remembers the sound of roars, growls and a low, throaty chuckle.

Two – Animal Instinct

Being a Zoan user, he knows things that normal humans cannot begin to imagine, thinks things that they would not be able to fathom.

Scents, for example, are something unique to him and his kind. That, he knows as much.

They're hard to discern at times, almost undetectable amongst the common folk; while some are as distinguishable as night and day. CP9 belongs to the latter half, as do the Mugiwara Pirates.

Jyabura smells, of course, like a wolf, and the young rubber-child like meat and Kalifa like sweet shampoo. It's all predictable; predictable that the sharpshooter should smell of gunpowder and the cyborg of metal. Everything is predictable.

This does not mean that everything has been predicted.

Jyabura smells like a wolf, yes, but also like the freshest green grass and the clearest blue sky. He smells like freedom, the same way Kalifa smells like the icy venom that so belies her devil fruit's nature. Rubber-boy is the epitome of power – power enough to bring a kingdom to its knees and drag it up again – power of the Pirate King and the will he carries. It flows in his scent; while fear and the barest hint of cola flows in the ones of his crewmates.

Then again, not everyone is so complicated.

Roronoa Zoro smells like steel. Rob Lucci smells like _blood_. Both are scents he will never smell again.

That, he knows as much.

One – Seeing Is Believing

Kaku has hallucinated before, but this is going just a bit too far.

"No."

"Yes."

Because Lucci sitting on his bed as though he hasn't been missing for three years must a hallucination. Or a dream, at least. A figment of his imagination, to go so far.

"No."

"Yes."

He wants to scream and cry and scream some more. But nothing comes out of his mouth. Kaku wonders whether this was how Lucci felt when he wrote the letter, and doubts it immediately.

"No!"

"Yes."

This cannot be happening.

"No. No! This cannot be _happening_!"

"It is."

Not after all the tears, the heartbreak.

"You… you broke my – you bastard."

"......"

Not after the goddamned rehabilitation. Not after all the embarrassing, horrible… Kumadori and Kalifa will be furious, he is sure of it.

"Does... does anyone else – " He doesn't want Jyabura to find out, and consequently laugh at him. He doesn't want Fukurou to find out, tell the whole damn island, and them consequently laugh at him as well. He doesn't want Blueno's snide remarks. He doesn't want Lucci back. He _doesn't_. (Doesn't he? - he asks himself, and vaguely notes how they've come full circle, the eight of them)

"Only you."

There's a certain finality in the statement. It pisses Kaku off.

"What is that supposed to mean, Lucci?"

"......"

"S-say something!"

Lucci smirks, and suddenly (unsurprisingly) Kaku wants to punch something hard. Preferably the other man's _face_.

"Seeing is believing."

Lucci's arms are wide open. Welcoming. Tempting. Real.

Kaku closes him eyes, sighs exasperatedly and smiles.

Seeing is believing.

**A/N: Not so much a sequel to 'Slicing Through Serenity'. It's set in the same timeframe though. If you didn't get it, go read 'Slicing Through Serenity'. Parts 6 – 3 are set before it, parts 2 and 1 after it. Please review!**

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